How and why filmmakers, authors and others choose to use the ampersand rather than the word "and" is a subject worthy of a story in itself. So I wrote it a few years back, when "Hustle & Flow" and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith" were released.

During my research I learned, the ampersand is a combination of the letters "et," which is Latin for "and" and that one of the first examples of an ampersand was found on a piece of papyrus from about 45 A.D.

It became a standard device for calligraphers and its use spread with the invention of printing in the early 15th century. The word ampersand reportedly comes from the practice of reciting all 26 letters of the alphabet followed by the "&" sign, pronounced 'and,' which was considered part of the alphabet. This recitation ended in the words "per se," to signal that a letter could be used as a word itself. Thus the phrase "and, per se" evolved into "ampersand" and crept into common English usage.